Racing News

Supaloc Racing’s South Australian Double Attack

Feb2

Written by:Thursday, February 02, 2012 6:15 PM

In a display of South Australian pride, Supaloc Racing will mount a two-pronged attack on the 2012 Australian GT Championship, with two South Aussie drivers preparing for the opening round of the championship at Clipsal with a test at Mallala yesterday.

Supaloc Racing’s Kevin Weeks, in his spectacular new Ford GT, will be joined by Andrew Taplin, who will race the team’s Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 in the GT Trophy class. Taplin actually owned and raced the Lamborghini, prior to selling it to Weeks for the 2010 season.

Today’s test day was Weeks’ first opportunity to drive the Ford GT in anger at Mallala. He ended the day satisfied with the team’s progress with the car setup.

“The power down was excellent, but we had a high speed stability problem and came off the track through the kink, which was a scary moment,” he said.

“It was caused by an aero imbalance. The team got onto it straight away and fixed the problem by adjusting the rake of the car.”

Weeks explained that the GT40 will be a more competitive package than the Lamborghini, but the setup window is much narrower.

“The Lamborghini doesn’t seem to be as sensitive to aero balance as the Ford GT,” he said. “We’ve been trying to get the aero balance right, and I’m confident that we’ve got it spot-on now.

“We virtually did not change the suspension out of the truck, because it was pretty much right.

“The car is very responsive, and the brakes and power-down are both awesome, so I think it will be a really good thing once we’ve nailed the setup.”

Andrew Taplin was also happy with how the day went, and commented on the improvements to the car since he last drove it.

“I had a lot of fun today,” he said. “It was just fantastic to be back in the Lamborghini, and I had a great day being associated with a great group of people. The car was just set up beautifully and I’m very impressed with the whole Supaloc operation.

Taplin commented on the responsiveness of the Supashock Suspension, one of the fundamental additions to the car since he last raced it.

“It was more responsive than I remember the car being before, and it did everything I asked of it today,” he said.

Supaloc Racing will test at Winton and again at Mallala ahead of the first round of the Australian GT Championship, at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide at the beginning of March.